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WHY GLOBAL WARMING IS DIFFERENT AND HARDER THAN
PREVIOUS ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS
http://maxwelgordon.hyves.nl/blog/58149955/Why_Globa
l_Warming_Is_Different_and_Harder_Than_Previous_Envi
ronmental_Problems/Dbom/?pageid=638A0JYZ1XC0WOS
W8#
There’s a consensus among leading scientists that global warming
is caused by human activity. What–if anything–should we do about
it?
JEFFREY BALL: Global warming is fundamentally harder than
past environmental problems. Unlike smog or litter or dirty rivers,
it’s global, long term and largely invisible. The upshot: Solving
global warming is the top priority of essentially no one (save a
relative handful of scientists and environmental activists).
That suggests two basic principles for fighting global warming. First, the steps
that will be most politically feasible are those that happen to curb greenhouse-
gas emissions in the process of doing something that more people care more
about: cleaning the air, or producing jobs or making money. Second, in
contrast to the approach taken thus far, the steps that make the most sense
are the ones that are most economically efficient.
A third basic principle is equally important: Technological breakthroughs are
hard to predict. So it’s unwise to ground any strategy to curb global warming
on the expectation that a particular technology will get big enough and cheap
enough to be a main fix.
Those three basic principles are pretty general. They point to two more-
specific approaches:
Focus on the biggest sources of greenhouse-gas emissions. That includes
a handful of gases produced in industrial processes that, pound for
pound, pack a far heavier global-warming punch than does carbon
dioxide. As for carbon dioxide, it means focusing on China, the world’s
biggest emitter and a place that has an incentive to clean up its energy
system that most people see as far more compelling than global
warming: dirty air.
And when governments around the world spend
money to promote cleaner energy, it’s worth
structuring those subsidies to reward not specific
predetermined technologies, but whichever
technologies over time end up able to produce the
most environmental gain at the lowest cost.
Read more:
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/81324-cr
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